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Spanish region uses the new medical aid in dying (MAiD)

Jan 2nd, 2022 by

Interesting to observe how immediately used is the new medical aid in dying law in Catalonia:

On December 2, Catalan health general secretary, Meritxell Masó, published numbers about the people who used the Spanish euthanasia law since the Catalan government implemented this in June 2021 in this part of Spain.

Until November 30, 53 requests were made. The vast majority is coming from primary care centers. In total, 28 of them have been approved by officials, with four yet to be carried out. Currently, 14 other requests are being studied, three have been declined, and six people died before their application was reviewed. Health authorities said that 14 are cancer patients and 23 have neurodegenerative diseases.

The requests are reviewed by the Catalan Guarantee and Evaluation, a new body created after the law was passed. The committee can also facilitate information regarding the process and requests.

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Death With Dignity Act, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Living Will, physician-assisted suicide, right to die, Switzerland | No Comments »

Tutu was a supporter of medical aid in dying (MAiD)

Dec 29th, 2021 by

Archbishop Tutu who died recently was a supporter of reform on medical assisted dying  –

but it’s not known to be the way in which his life ended.

…………

Desmond Tutu has said he would like the option of ending his life through assisted dying as he called on politicians, lawmakers and religious leaders to take action on the issue.

In an article published on his 85th birthday on Friday, and following several spells in hospital this year for recurring infections, the emeritus archbishop of Cape Town and anti-apartheid activist reiterated his support for assisted dying, first disclosed in the Guardian in 2014.

“With my life closer to its end than its beginning, I wish to help give people dignity in dying,” he wrote in the Washington Post.

“Just as I have argued firmly for compassion and fairness in life, I believe that terminally ill people should be treated with the same compassion and fairness when it comes to their deaths,” he added.

“Dying people should have the right to choose how and when they leave Mother Earth. I believe that, alongside the wonderful palliative care that exists, their choices should include a dignified assisted death.”

Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Death With Dignity Act, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Dr. Kevorkian, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Final Exit Network, right to die, Tutu | No Comments »

Connecting patients to doctors who know about assisted dying

Dec 20th, 2021 by

From the newsletter 20 December 2121 of the American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying

The Academy’s Patient to Doctor Referral System (https://ACAMAID.us19)  inaugurated in March 2020 to link patients with aid-in-dying experienced doctors, has now reached 300 patient requests and we’ve placed 100% of them with participating doctors.

 Sadly, 25 years after Oregon became the first state with legal aid in dying, the hope that terminally ill patients considering aid in dying simply need to ask their doctor hasn’t panned out.

 Mostly, their kind and caring doctors don’t have experience or training in medical aid in dying, and they’re not comfortable providing care they’re not trained in.

 So while the Academy is doing all it can to train more and more doctors, we also started the Patient to Doctor Referral System (https://ACAMAID.us19.list-manage.com) to connect patients with doctors who are both supportive of and experienced in aid-in-dying are. Our referral system is national.

 

 

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Posted in Assisted dying, Death With Dignity Act, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Oregon law, right to die, RTD News, RTD Organizations, Switzerland | No Comments »

F Y I — How to contact ERGO & Derek Humphry

Dec 9th, 2021 by

Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization (ERGO)

Contacting ERGO and Derek Humphry —

Email:  ergo@finalexit.org

Web:  https://www.finalexit.org

Bookstore:  https://www.finalexit.org/ergo-store

BLOG:  www.assisted-dying.org

YOUTUBE:  https://www.youtube.com/user/TheFinalExit

Donations:  https://www.finalexit.org/ergo-store (see contribute icon)

Or mail to  ERGO, 24829 Norris Lane, Junction City, Oregon 97448 USA

 

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, death, degerative illness, Derek Humphry, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Hemlock, Jean's Way, Living Will, physician-assisted suicide, Publications/InternetMedia, right to die, RTD News, RTD Organizations, Self-Deliverance | No Comments »

Controversial books on choices in dying discussed on NY radio

Dec 8th, 2021 by

Katie Engelhart’s new book “The Inevitable” was discussed on the radio recently. This is an extract:

BROOKE GLADSTONE This is On the Media on WNYC Radio New on WNYC Radio New York  on 3 December 2021:

BROOKE GLADSTONE What do you think about books like ‘Final Exit: The   of Self Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying’  by Derek Humphry. There’s also another one A ‘Chosen Death: The Dying Confront Assisted Suicide’  by Lonny Shavelson. These authors can’t be charged with assisting in suicide, can they?

KATIE ENGELHART Well, people are really fearful of dying badly. They want to know that something will work quickly and that it won’t leave a mess for family members to find afterwards. And that’s what these manuals help people with. The book Final Exit was a surprise New York Times bestseller, I think, in the 90s.

I contacted the author, and all these years later, he still sells a couple of copies a day, and he still gets calls from people all over the world who want to ask very specific questions about some say, cardiac medication they’ve been hoarding.

As to the question of whether someone can get in trouble for sharing this information, that’s actually pretty interesting. To commit suicide in the United States is legal, but to assist someone else in the legal act of committing suicide is illegal. And that brings us to the question of what constitutes assistance, which is complicated and vary state by state.

So I did interview a lawyer who’s involved in a group that helps provide people with information, and he’d done this big survey. And he basically found that in most places, when we say ‘assisting a suicide,’ the courts mean physical assistance. You handed someone medication, you injected someone with a drug, but in a few places, the definition is fuzzier and perhaps will allow for someone to be charged with assistance just for providing information or means. And this lawyer,

Robert Rivas, said to me, if that interpretation is correct, it could be that in some states, someone could ask a librarian for a copy of this New York Times bestselling book Final Exit, have the librarian hand over the copy and later have the librarian be charged if that person goes home, reads the book and uses it to end his life.

 Read the entire radio interview  at WNYC New York.  The book is on Amazon.

 

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Books, Death With Dignity Act, Dignitas, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Final Exit Network, Opinion Pieces, physician-assisted suicide, right to die, RTD News, Self-Deliverance | No Comments »

End- of- year donation to choices in dying cause

Nov 29th, 2021 by

Choices in dying.  Donation ?

A modest donation to ERGO (nonprofit) would help with our research and our support of inquirers.

See the 9th icon (‘How you can contribute…..’) at our web site:

          https/::www.finalexit.org/ergo-store

Or mail to

ERGO, 24829 Norris Lane, Junction City, OR 97448

                            Thank you  — Derek Humphry

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Death With Dignity Act, degerative illness, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Final Exit Network, Living Will, physician-assisted suicide, RTD Organizations, Self-Deliverance, Switzerland | No Comments »

England’s chance of assisted dying law reform is slender

Nov 20th, 2021 by

A fascinating article in the Guardian 21 Nov. about a terminally ill UK person traveling to Switzerland to get a medically assisted death contains this bleak outlook for law reform in England:

Assisted death is legal in Switzerland, as well as in several other countries including Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium. (plus 10 USA states). Although the details differ, the success of each system is grounded in tight regulation and documentation.

In the UK, however, anyone who does anything that could be construed as “encouraging or assisting” another person to die, such as buying their plane ticket, pushing their wheelchair through an airport, or even talking about how it might happen, may be committing an offence that carries a potential prison sentence of up to 14 years.

The British Medical Association recently dropped its opposition to assisted dying but, despite widespread support from the public and half of doctors surveyed personally believing there should be a change in the law to permit them to prescribe life-ending drugs, little has changed.

A bill that would allow some people with a terminal illness to end their life at a time of their choosing is progressing through parliament, but is not expected to become law. “It’s unlikely to pass unless it gets taken up by MPs in the Commons and the government gives it time for debate,” says Trevor Moore, chair of the campaign group My Death, My Decision, which is calling for a public inquiry into the law. “There are some supportive MPs, but it takes up parliamentary time, and there are a lot of other things going on.”

Worth reading the whole article in the Guardian at –

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/20/a-trip-to-switzerland-in-search-of-a-good-death-all-this-instead-of-just-doing-it-in-brighton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Death With Dignity Act, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Oregon law, Politics/Law, right to die, Switzerland | No Comments »

Nov 8th, 2021 by

The Economist of 8 November has a long article surveying the benefits and problems of medical assisted dying worldwide.

Death on demand
In the West, assisted dying is rapidly becoming legal and accepted

It is raising hard questions and changing how people think about death

Extract :

Change has been rapid. Assisted dying is now legal or decriminalised in at least a dozen countries, with legislation or court challenges pending in many others. On November 5th Portugal’s parliament approved a revised bill which would allow those with “grave, incurable and irreversible” conditions to receive help to end their lives (the constitutional court had in March blocked an earlier version as being too imprecise).

Other largely Catholic countries such as Chile, Ireland, Italy and Uruguay are also moving towards enshrining a right to die. In Belgium, Colombia and the Netherlands governments have broadened assisted dying laws to include terminally ill children.

After years of struggle, activists and politicians have found ways through or around reluctant legislators. The right to die has been ticked through American ballot boxes, squeezed through Australian legislatures, and gavelled through Canadian and European courts. Proponents are using public consultations, campaigns and petitions to demonstrate public support. And growing evidence from countries with assisted-dying laws has undermined fears it will become easy to “kill granny”. The changes are snowballing as advocates in one country learn from their counterparts elsewhere.

Assisted dying remains uncommon. Most cases are cancer-related, and the number of deaths is tiny. But they are nonetheless changing how people think about dying. In some countries assisted dying has been extended to those with mental disorders and dementia, and even to old people who feel tired of life. A clandestine network of baby-boomers who share methods to kill themselves has sprung up on the internet. Even some proponents are beginning to worry about a slippery slope.  (end extract)

Read entire article at

https://www.economist.com/international/

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Posted in Assisted dying, Assisted Suicide, Canada assisted dying laws, Death With Dignity Act, degerative illness, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Dutch euthanasia, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Hemlock, Oregon law, right to die, Switzerland | No Comments »

Lawsuit could improve medical aid in dying

Oct 29th, 2021 by

The Associated Press is reporting this story of considerable significance to the right-to-die movement:

A Portland doctor who says he wants to offer his terminally ill Washington patients the option of assisted suicide filed a federal lawsuit Thursday, saying the residency requirements for Oregon’s assisted suicide law violate the U.S. Constitution.

Oregon was the first state to legalize medical aid in dying in 1997, when it allowed adult residents with a terminal diagnosis and prognosis of six months or less to live to end their lives by taking a lethal dose of prescribed medication. The new lawsuit is by the national advocacy organization Compassion & Choices and an Oregon Health & Science University professor of family medicine.

Experts believe the legal action could have broad implications as the first challenge in the nation to raise the question of whether such residency requirements are constitutional, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

Oregon’s law was the basis for laws since adopted in eight other states and Washington, DC. California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Vermont and Washington state allow aid in dying for residents of their states only.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Portland on Thursday. It asks the court to prohibit Oregon officials from enforcing the residency provision of the law.

It says the residency requirement violates the privileges and immunities clause in Article IV of the Constitution and the commerce clause in Article I.

The plaintiff in the case, Dr. Nick Gideonse, is a family practice physician and associate professor of family medicine at OHSU and a longtime supporter of medical aid in dying.

“I’ve been providing medical aid in dying since the early days of Oregon’s law. It’s profoundly beneficial to patients who have nothing left but suffering at the end of their life,” Gideonse said.

Washington allows medical aid in dying. But according to the lawsuit, Gideonse cannot offer his Washington patients medical aid in dying without risking his medical license or criminal prosecution.

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Posted in Death With Dignity Act, Derek Humphry, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Final Exit Network, Living Will, Oregon law, right to die, RTD News | No Comments »

Some progress to get medical assisted dying in the UK

Oct 22nd, 2021 by 

After an eight hour debate in the House of Lords on Friday, Baroness Meacher's Assisted
Dying Bill passed its Second Reading unopposed. This is a huge win for the campaign.

 The Bill will now go to committee stage where it will be further scrutinized.
After that it must go to the House of Commons for consideration.

The British parliament has been considering reform on right-to-die laws since l936
and always defeated.  But this law looks more likely to succeed given the many 
ccountries that have now introduced -- without problems -- similar laws.

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Posted in Assisted dying, Derek Humphry, Dignitas, Dr. Kevorkian, Euthanasia, Final Exit, Oregon law, physician-assisted suicide, RTD News | No Comments »

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